If anyone's feeling up to a challenge

Northern Brewer General
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Crowd sourcing some recipes:

Nerd alert. I’ve been talking to friends about making beers for Season 3 of Game of Thrones. We took some stupid online tests to see “Which house we belong to” and jokingly said each of us should have our own brew. The two that I want to make (just to surprise them) are a Dragon’s Blood Ale and a Taking the Black Ale (since the majority of use fell into the Targaryeans or The Wall). For the Dragon beer I was thinking a red ale with rye and a very subtle spice essence from anaheim chiles. For the black ale I was thinking of using an old black kolsch recipe that I have but adding spruce tips and or juniper berries and bumping up the abv (since it’s so cold up there on the wall, gotta have something that warms the blood).

Anyway, I’m an extract brewer with a limitation of a five gallon kettle. I love an excuse to mini-mash so all ideas in that vein are welcome. Go nuts. I just want to see what you guys would do if you were going to toss these recipes together.

2

Um, the obvious answer would be to make up some mead but you would need to do that now for the season four premier so that might be out of the question. Braggot is a mead like beer I guess, never made it or had it though.

I like the black kolsch idea, sounds interesting and appropriate for the wall since it is black and would need to be fermented at a colder temperature. That’s a pretty delicate flavor balance though so I would be worried to add other things although I admittedly have never added spruce tips or juniper berries.

Either way I don’t think it will be hard to top the Blonde Ale Ommegang is releasing influenced by the Joffrey’s blonde hair… Sure the beer will be good enough, just a weak idea IMO.

I’ve thought of this before and came up with the name Ned’s Head but don’t know what style it should be.

3

Random extra comment:

How awesome was the trailer? Berric lighting his sword on fire, Danny with the Unsullied army, Jamie screaming, Joffrey just being a douche, dragons flying by the ship, Wildlings climbing the wall… going to be so epic. Not sure if you’ve all read the books but this is going to be the best season I think.

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[quote=“inhousebrew”]Random extra comment:

How awesome was the trailer? Berric lighting his sword on fire, Danny with the Unsullied army, Jamie screaming, Joffrey just being a douche, dragons flying by the ship, Wildlings climbing the wall… going to be so epic. Not sure if you’ve all read the books but this is going to be the best season I think.[/quote]

Yep. Super awesome. Cant wait. Losing my mind with excitement. Not really, but it is pretty darn cool.

To the OP:

The rye needs to be mashed I believe so depending on desired gravity,

Golden DME
Crystal 80 or something
2 or three lbs rye
mash the crystal and rye

Hop schedule…Ive never brewed a red. Maybe something like,

Willamette at 60
CAscade at 15 and 0?

Ommegang has a Lannister Game of Thrones beer.

5

You could also do a gruit/unhopped beer that is lowish gravity and should be ready for April 17th.

I think NB has those wizardy-arse herbs like mugwort, horehound, costmary, wormwood, and yarrow.

http://homebrewexchange.net/resources/g ... erbal_ales
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Braggot can also take a long while. I made a wheat braggot a couple of years ago (over 9%) and it took most of a year to get good, it was pretty hot at first.
A real low gravity mead might be doable in a fairly short time.

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I heated rocks for a Stein Ale on 12-12-12. Plan on enjoying a few from my Ale Horns while watching the new season.
[attachment=0]Ale Horns-re.jpg[/attachment]

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[quote=“Baratone Brewer”]I heated rocks for a Stein Ale on 12-12-12. Plan on enjoying a few from my Ale Horns while watching the new season.
[attachment=0]Ale Horns-re.jpg[/attachment][/quote]

“Get me a horn of ale Snow”

I really need a horn to drink from.

9

If you’re looking for Dragon’s Blood, you’re not going to get a rich red color with malt alone. Cherry juice will get you there, though.

Below is what I’m thinking. Rye spiceiness plus tart cherries. Plus, the rye should add extra body that would go well with the “Blood” theme. If you can get your hands on Caliente hops, I’d use those in place of the Glacier, but either should do just fine. If you want to amp up the alcohol, then add another pound of DME and a pound of sugar to the recipe below.

Steeping grains need to be mashed (Rye). I’d cold steep the Midnight Wheat in a quart or two of water the night before and add towards the end of the boil:

Title: Dragon’s Blood (Tart Cherry Rye Ale)

Brew Method: Extract
Style Name: Fruit Beer
Boil Time: 60 min
Batch Size: 5.5 gallons (fermentor volume)
Boil Size: 3 gallons
Efficiency: 75% (steeping grains only)

STATS:
Original Gravity: 1.057
Final Gravity: 1.016
ABV (standard): 5.36%
IBU (tinseth): 25.93
SRM (morey): 16.64

FERMENTABLES:
6 lb - Dry Malt Extract - Light (72.7%)

STEEPING GRAINS:
1 lb - American - Rye (12.1%)
1 lb - German - CaraRed (12.1%)
4 oz - American - Midnight Wheat Malt (3%)

HOPS:
1 oz - Magnum for 60 min, Type: Pellet, Use: Boil (AA 12.2, IBU: 25.93)
1 oz - Glacier for 0 min, Type: Pellet, Use: Boil (AA 5.6)

OTHER INGREDIENTS:
32 oz - Tart Cherry Juice, Time: 5 min, Type: Flavor, Use: Boil

YEAST:
Fermentis / Safale - Safale - American Ale Yeast US-05

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Keep 'em coming! These are great! Good point about the kolsch and spruce and the delicate flavors. I was disgusted with my first gruit, so I’ll probably pass on that one. But, otherwise I’m nibbling at these ideas.

11

Bottled up the oaked Braggot last night, bottle conditioning, and will hopefully be carbed for the season premiere! Have exactly one case of it. A lot of it will be aged for a while, but definitely cracking one or two for GOT.

Love me some wizardy drinks!